Impact Innovation Commercialisation Navigator®

At Impact Innovation, commercialisation is defined as replacing assumptions with facts. However, commercialising new products and services is challenging with enormous complexity – and starts with a lot of assumptions. Evidence of this is the high probability of failure of Australian commercialisation efforts. The Australian Government has placed a focus on the better translation of research to commercial outcomes given Australia’s ranking of 81 out of 143 countries using the Global Innovation Index Innovation Efficiency Ratio. Therefore, Impact Innovation saw the gap to create a clear and improved process for investment and decision-making to accelerate success.

The Commercialisation Navigator® tool focuses on: - Identifying the difference between assumptions and facts and prioritises technical and business model data requirements. - Designing processes to support decisions in complex environments with imperfect information. - Clarifying roles and skills in collecting relevant information and evaluating that information to improve decision making. The Commercialisation Navigator® addresses the most common failure points and challenges researchers and idea owners face and recognises the difference between an assumption and a fact. The Commercialisation Navigator’s framework has 12 different focus areas and 30 lines of enquiry to steer the commercial project and keep it on track.

The tool results in the following outcomes: 1. Identification of critical next steps for commercial projects. 2. Increased speed of commercial delivery by targeting priority gaps in information. The following 3 examples highlight the impact the tool has had in improving the commercialisation initiatives for clients: 1. Providing a practical framework to include customer needs and insights into research project development processes 2. Aiding research commercialisation managers identify appropriate technology pathways instead of taking a templated or ‘cookie-cutter’ approach 3. Information gained through the tool supports seed round investments and allows companies to fast- track capital raising through VCs

The Commercialisation Navigator’s framework has 12 different focus areas and 30 lines of enquiry to steer the commercial project and keep it on track. An Impact Innovation expert guides teams through the framework - this is vital as it was found that without a facilitator, idea owners and researchers overestimate the knowledge they have. The framework was researched and developed to be flexible, in that it can be used for research organisations, start-ups, SMEs as well as large corporations and as an online facilitated tool, it is easily accessible to both local and internationally based teams. The Commercial Navigator® framework encompasses 3 key elements: 1. Guided access to the Commercialisation Navigator® tool (a proven framework for supporting and mentoring commercial projects) 2. An experienced commercialisation facilitator to guide and debrief 3. A commercial action plan - including insights for addressing investment risks and identifying the project’s critical next steps to speed up value delivery